Can Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions be used to Monitor the Hearing of HIV-Infected Patients? A Case-Control Study in a Cameroonian Population

Background: Many studies suggest a deleterious effect of Human Immunodeficiency Virus and its drugs on hearing and advocate for a close monitoring. We assessed the utility of Transient Evoked OtoAcoustic Emissions (TEOAEs) for the screening of preclinical hearing damage among HIV-infected patients. Methods: We conducted a case-control study in the Yaoundé NSIF Hospital. Ninety HIV-positive cases and 90 HIVnegative controls aged 15 to 49 years without prior history of hearing loss-causing disease or drug were included. Hearing loss was defined as a mean pure tone audiometry (PTA) threshold ≥35 dB and TEOAEs were recorded. Results: PTA revealed 15 cases with hearing loss≥ 35 dB (16.67%) versus 2 among the controls (2.24%, p=0.002).There were 22 and 3 fail TEOAEs in the case and control groups respectively. The cases were 10.9 (95% CI: 3.24-36.46) times more likely to have Fail TEOAE than the controls. The performances of TEOAE test were: sensitivity 80% vs. 100%, specificity 90% vs. 99%, positive predictive value 42% vs. 66% and negative predictive value 98% vs. 100% respectively in the HIV-positive and HIV-negative groups. Conclusion: TEOAEs could be a useful to detect preclinical hearing impairment in HIV-positive patients with normal pure tone audiometry. In addition, it's an easy and noninvasive procedure.